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> Yet it would've prevented AWS from undercutting their paid offering in the place I'm at now that would rather pay for it than self-host it. Key word here is

> Yet it would've prevented AWS from undercutting their paid offering in the place I'm at now that would rather pay for it than self-host it. Key word here is would've. They were already Apache 2.0 until 7.1.0 therefore this change will have absolutely no effect on Amazon's business; all it will do is encourage the develop of high-quality feature-rich Apache 2.0 forks while hurting Elastic's brand image - rightly so - because they're (a) no longer an open-source company [except for beats/etc which only works in the context of the now-proprietary elasticsearch/kibana], and (b) they outright lied to the community when they claimed that future versions of their open core would always remain Apache 2.0

syshum 6y ago
This is where the Free Software, ideology, and the "open Source" ideology really show its difference I view SSPL as a Copy Left style License for the SaaS age. They picked the wrong license in the first place with Apache, they should have used GPL, AGPL, or some other copy left anyway I generally oppose Apache, MIT and other non-copy left license exactly because it allows Amazon and other large companies is leech off the work for their own commercial offers while giving nothing back
- parasubvert 6y ago
  I suspect the Free Software foundation would strongly disagree. Copyleft licenses such as AGPL are open source licenses, because they preserve user freedom. The SSPL is not an open source license (and likely not even Copyleft) because it restricts user freedom that have usually been guaranteed by FLOSS. https://opensource.org/node/1099 https://opensource.org/node/1099 Open source isn’t about guaranteeing a for-profit company a business model. “Leeching” is irrelevant (and also just Elastic marketing propaganda). User freedom is the whole point.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Elastic marketing did not come up with describing AWS or any of the other big tech companies as leeches. That has been around for a very long time I am aware FSF would disagree with my position, AGPL is better than SSPL. As to OSI, I have losts of issue with OSI as an organization, and when they state "But Elastic’s relicensing is not evidence of any failure of the open source licensing model or a gap in open source licenses. " they are simply wrong There is a clear gap in open source licenses when it comes to dealing with SaaS, the fact they do no see this gap is very telling. the Free Software community saw this problem and thus the AGPL was born, something like AGPL is needed for open source, but OSI refused to even acknowledge there is a problem let alone look for solutions to it //And no Free Software is not the same as Open Source Software, they should not be linked as being the same edit: >>User freedom is the whole point. Free Software is about user freedom Open Source is about Developer Freedom, that has always been the big difference. Apache, MIT, BSD etc are all licenses that allow devs to take code, use it in commerical products. That is why you see places like GitHub default to these non-copy left licenses. Free Software is about copy left, GPL and the like. Because it gives USERS freedom
    - parasubvert 6y ago
      “They are simply wrong”? That’s your argument? I think you have zero interest in Free Software. You want “Free Software except in the ways I don’t like”. AGPL was about ensuring user freedom by requiring server hosted source code modifications to be contributed back to the community. SSPL isn’t about that. SSPL removes freedoms from using the software for no principled reason other than to allow a copyright holder to make more money by selling you a less restrictive proprietary license. It isn’t copyleft, it isn’t free, it isn’t open.
      - syshum 6y ago
        Hmm clever editing I can see we are not discussing in good faith. You built a nice strawman to tear down around my “They are simply wrong” quote using it out of context How about you address what I actually said OSI is wrong about, they are wrong about the fact that there is no gap in Open Source licensing when it comes to SaaS Sevices. SSPL may not be the best solution to it, but completely rejecting the clear problem is how you end up with less than perfect solutions like SSPL.
        parasubvert 6y ago
        I am trying to argue in good faith. I’m not editing anything, I just don’t understand your argument. I don’t see what the clear problem is with open source licensing. AGPL solves the problem of SaaS providers modifying your software without freeing their modifications, if that’s what you want. AGPL is also an OSI approved license. What more is missing?
        zwaps 6y ago
        Well sorry but it's actually stated right here: https://opensource.org/node/1099 https://opensource.org/node/1099 If you want to have a business model like Elastic, then open source is simple not right for you. This is what the OSI Board of Directors says. It's a different discussion whether this is a good business model, but it's not like op has no point here: What's missing is an open-source license for products whose profits accrue due to being run as SaaS. If you're just going to say: "This is not possible with open-source licenses", then that's the gap. What people actually want to do is exclude about 10 or less companies from selling their software at no own cost, while keeping it open-source for everyone else. And OSI says this is not a use-case for any of their open-source licenses. Maybe there should be a license for that. I don't know.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    I _mostly_ agree here. But... I do note that the original "open source definitions" were drafted back in the late 90s (and from memory, built on older pre existing Debian docs of similar nature). The world was different back then, I wonder what the authors of those docs would have considered "user freedom" to be in the age of AWS/GAE/Azure? (I guess Stallman, for all his flaws, is a reasonable guide to what the free software movement would have thought. It'd be illuminating to hear his opinion on these new licenses. I suspect I know the answer, and it'd very strongly agree with your comment...)
    - parasubvert 6y ago
      I think they’d ask: In what way is AWS, GAE or Azure restricting your freedom to use free software? If those companies customize your code and don’t recontribute it, that’s what the AGPL is for. The SSPL doesn’t actually help with this problem. It removes your freedom to use the software in certain ways. It is a pecuniary license designed to sell you a more permissive license.
    - simlevesque 6y ago
      Users is not just end users. AWS and others are users too and Stallman wants them to have the same freedom to use and modify software as I do. We have the same rights and responsibilities. Even Elastic is a user of the software. I respect anyone who follows a license, I respect anyone who want to relicense a software and I respect someone who forks a project. I don't see any fault anywhere here.
    - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
      So, let's pretend I'm Amazon and I'm offering a SAAS Elasticsearch product. You need someone to manage your Elasticsearch for me, so you pay me. Internally, I'm running vanilla, unmodified Elasticsearch, which talks to a management layer of proprietary code that interfaces with the rest of AWS. What right is being violated here? You as a user can run your own Elasticsearch software; I haven't modified it and thus I don't need to publish anything specific. What the SSPL says is I must publicize my entire SAAS product - but the user isn't paying me to run their own Elasticsearch SAAS product, they're paying me to run Elasticsearch. So to call SSPL copyleft is totally absurd. Now, there's a broader discussion that you raised of whether the open source definitions are out-of-date or not. Personally, I don't believe so. I don't see how any of the newer developments in the space (public clouds, managed offerings, etc) materially change anything; indeed the whole point of OSS is it's based off of deep principles.
- sgift 6y ago
  > I generally oppose Apache, MIT and other non-copy left license exactly because it allows Amazon and other large companies is leech off the work for their own commercial offers while giving nothing back Like Elastic "leached" of Lucene? Elastics whole business model depends on Lucene being under the Apache license. If Lucene followed your suggestion (funny enough, Lucene used LGPL very early in its history) Elastic wouldn't exist at all.
  - syshum 6y ago
    That is largely hypothetical and one does not know if Elastic would taken a different form is Lucene would have been under LGPL, nothing in LGPL would have prevented it, and maybe Elastic would have chosen LGPL themselves or even AGPL which I personally would have preferred over SSPL but I understand why they choose SSPL and 100% reject OSI's position that is a non-open license, it is a non free software license, but it is IMO an Open Source license
- bigiain 6y ago
  On the other hand, a lot of people (myself included) have no intention of ever being in Amazon's large scale hosting business, and actively avoid building my software on GPL/AGPL where there are more permissive (but still "standard" like Apache/MIT) license choices available. (I _do_ totally understand the principle of strongly viral licenses, I think the GPL is an amazing thing. The chardonnay socialist in me wishes the whole world would use it. Pragmatically, at work I feel obliged to point out the responsibilities of using GPLed dependancies. From a profit-focussed business decision, it's often better avoided. I agree what Amazon does with Mongo/Redis/Elastic et al. qualifies as "leeching", maybe I'm only fooling myself that my work's projects are somehow better...)
- pvorb 6y ago
  The thing is, in this case, Amazon's business is not about extending ElasticSearch with proprietary features. It's about hosting the OSS product. Had ElasticSearch been under a copyleft license, the only difference would be that Elastic would've been unable to simply move away from the copyleft license.
- reissbaker 6y ago
  SSPL is marketed as copyleft, but it really isn't. AGPL is. SSPL requires not only that you open source modifications to the software, but also that you open source "management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software" that you use to operate the licensed software. If you want to offer ElasticSearch as a service, you have to open-source your entire hosting stack including UI. God help you if you pay for any proprietary software — you literally can't satisfy these terms. Notably, Elastic itself doesn't have to do this for its own hosting service, because of course it can't satisfy the terms: no hosting company I know of can. The point of the license isn't to get contributions back. The point is to prevent competition to Elastic's hosting business. Elastic's new version of ElasticSearch is source-available software, not open-source, by pretty much any reasonable definition.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    >If you want to offer ElasticSearch as a service, you have to open-source your entire hosting stack including UI. It's worse than that: you need to release your entire hosting stack under the SSPL. It's extremely unlikely that you're able to do this. Hope your servers aren't running Linux! (Or bash or the GNU coreutils or...) If it were acceptable for the rest of the stack to be under another free software license, I'm not actually sure I'd be opposed to it. But yeah, as-is it sure looks like they've just written the license such that it's impossible for a hosting provider to comply.
hvdijk 6y ago
> (b) they outright lied to the community when they claimed that future versions of their open core would always remain Apache 2.0 Where did they make this claim?
- somethingwitty1 6y ago
  It is covered in the blog post if you read it. https://web.archive.org/web/20200120104750/https:/www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack https://web.archive.org/web/20200120104750/https:/www.elasti... "We did not change the license of any of the Apache 2.0 code of Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash — and we never will."
  - hvdijk 6y ago
    Ah, thanks, somehow that completely slipped by me.

syshum 6y ago

This is where the Free Software, ideology, and the "open Source" ideology really show its difference I view SSPL as a Copy Left style License for the SaaS age. They picked the wrong license in the first place with Apache, they should have used GPL, AGPL, or some other copy left anyway I generally oppose Apache, MIT and other non-copy left license exactly because it allows Amazon and other large companies is leech off the work for their own commercial offers while giving nothing back

parasubvert 6y ago
I suspect the Free Software foundation would strongly disagree. Copyleft licenses such as AGPL are open source licenses, because they preserve user freedom. The SSPL is not an open source license (and likely not even Copyleft) because it restricts user freedom that have usually been guaranteed by FLOSS. https://opensource.org/node/1099 https://opensource.org/node/1099 Open source isn’t about guaranteeing a for-profit company a business model. “Leeching” is irrelevant (and also just Elastic marketing propaganda). User freedom is the whole point.
- syshum 6y ago
  Elastic marketing did not come up with describing AWS or any of the other big tech companies as leeches. That has been around for a very long time I am aware FSF would disagree with my position, AGPL is better than SSPL. As to OSI, I have losts of issue with OSI as an organization, and when they state "But Elastic’s relicensing is not evidence of any failure of the open source licensing model or a gap in open source licenses. " they are simply wrong There is a clear gap in open source licenses when it comes to dealing with SaaS, the fact they do no see this gap is very telling. the Free Software community saw this problem and thus the AGPL was born, something like AGPL is needed for open source, but OSI refused to even acknowledge there is a problem let alone look for solutions to it //And no Free Software is not the same as Open Source Software, they should not be linked as being the same edit: >>User freedom is the whole point. Free Software is about user freedom Open Source is about Developer Freedom, that has always been the big difference. Apache, MIT, BSD etc are all licenses that allow devs to take code, use it in commerical products. That is why you see places like GitHub default to these non-copy left licenses. Free Software is about copy left, GPL and the like. Because it gives USERS freedom
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    “They are simply wrong”? That’s your argument? I think you have zero interest in Free Software. You want “Free Software except in the ways I don’t like”. AGPL was about ensuring user freedom by requiring server hosted source code modifications to be contributed back to the community. SSPL isn’t about that. SSPL removes freedoms from using the software for no principled reason other than to allow a copyright holder to make more money by selling you a less restrictive proprietary license. It isn’t copyleft, it isn’t free, it isn’t open.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Hmm clever editing I can see we are not discussing in good faith. You built a nice strawman to tear down around my “They are simply wrong” quote using it out of context How about you address what I actually said OSI is wrong about, they are wrong about the fact that there is no gap in Open Source licensing when it comes to SaaS Sevices. SSPL may not be the best solution to it, but completely rejecting the clear problem is how you end up with less than perfect solutions like SSPL.
      - parasubvert 6y ago
        I am trying to argue in good faith. I’m not editing anything, I just don’t understand your argument. I don’t see what the clear problem is with open source licensing. AGPL solves the problem of SaaS providers modifying your software without freeing their modifications, if that’s what you want. AGPL is also an OSI approved license. What more is missing?
        zwaps 6y ago
        Well sorry but it's actually stated right here: https://opensource.org/node/1099 https://opensource.org/node/1099 If you want to have a business model like Elastic, then open source is simple not right for you. This is what the OSI Board of Directors says. It's a different discussion whether this is a good business model, but it's not like op has no point here: What's missing is an open-source license for products whose profits accrue due to being run as SaaS. If you're just going to say: "This is not possible with open-source licenses", then that's the gap. What people actually want to do is exclude about 10 or less companies from selling their software at no own cost, while keeping it open-source for everyone else. And OSI says this is not a use-case for any of their open-source licenses. Maybe there should be a license for that. I don't know.
- bigiain 6y ago
  I _mostly_ agree here. But... I do note that the original "open source definitions" were drafted back in the late 90s (and from memory, built on older pre existing Debian docs of similar nature). The world was different back then, I wonder what the authors of those docs would have considered "user freedom" to be in the age of AWS/GAE/Azure? (I guess Stallman, for all his flaws, is a reasonable guide to what the free software movement would have thought. It'd be illuminating to hear his opinion on these new licenses. I suspect I know the answer, and it'd very strongly agree with your comment...)
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    I think they’d ask: In what way is AWS, GAE or Azure restricting your freedom to use free software? If those companies customize your code and don’t recontribute it, that’s what the AGPL is for. The SSPL doesn’t actually help with this problem. It removes your freedom to use the software in certain ways. It is a pecuniary license designed to sell you a more permissive license.
  - simlevesque 6y ago
    Users is not just end users. AWS and others are users too and Stallman wants them to have the same freedom to use and modify software as I do. We have the same rights and responsibilities. Even Elastic is a user of the software. I respect anyone who follows a license, I respect anyone who want to relicense a software and I respect someone who forks a project. I don't see any fault anywhere here.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    So, let's pretend I'm Amazon and I'm offering a SAAS Elasticsearch product. You need someone to manage your Elasticsearch for me, so you pay me. Internally, I'm running vanilla, unmodified Elasticsearch, which talks to a management layer of proprietary code that interfaces with the rest of AWS. What right is being violated here? You as a user can run your own Elasticsearch software; I haven't modified it and thus I don't need to publish anything specific. What the SSPL says is I must publicize my entire SAAS product - but the user isn't paying me to run their own Elasticsearch SAAS product, they're paying me to run Elasticsearch. So to call SSPL copyleft is totally absurd. Now, there's a broader discussion that you raised of whether the open source definitions are out-of-date or not. Personally, I don't believe so. I don't see how any of the newer developments in the space (public clouds, managed offerings, etc) materially change anything; indeed the whole point of OSS is it's based off of deep principles.
sgift 6y ago
> I generally oppose Apache, MIT and other non-copy left license exactly because it allows Amazon and other large companies is leech off the work for their own commercial offers while giving nothing back Like Elastic "leached" of Lucene? Elastics whole business model depends on Lucene being under the Apache license. If Lucene followed your suggestion (funny enough, Lucene used LGPL very early in its history) Elastic wouldn't exist at all.
- syshum 6y ago
  That is largely hypothetical and one does not know if Elastic would taken a different form is Lucene would have been under LGPL, nothing in LGPL would have prevented it, and maybe Elastic would have chosen LGPL themselves or even AGPL which I personally would have preferred over SSPL but I understand why they choose SSPL and 100% reject OSI's position that is a non-open license, it is a non free software license, but it is IMO an Open Source license
bigiain 6y ago
On the other hand, a lot of people (myself included) have no intention of ever being in Amazon's large scale hosting business, and actively avoid building my software on GPL/AGPL where there are more permissive (but still "standard" like Apache/MIT) license choices available. (I _do_ totally understand the principle of strongly viral licenses, I think the GPL is an amazing thing. The chardonnay socialist in me wishes the whole world would use it. Pragmatically, at work I feel obliged to point out the responsibilities of using GPLed dependancies. From a profit-focussed business decision, it's often better avoided. I agree what Amazon does with Mongo/Redis/Elastic et al. qualifies as "leeching", maybe I'm only fooling myself that my work's projects are somehow better...)
pvorb 6y ago
The thing is, in this case, Amazon's business is not about extending ElasticSearch with proprietary features. It's about hosting the OSS product. Had ElasticSearch been under a copyleft license, the only difference would be that Elastic would've been unable to simply move away from the copyleft license.
reissbaker 6y ago
SSPL is marketed as copyleft, but it really isn't. AGPL is. SSPL requires not only that you open source modifications to the software, but also that you open source "management software, user interfaces, application program interfaces, automation software, monitoring software, backup software, storage software and hosting software" that you use to operate the licensed software. If you want to offer ElasticSearch as a service, you have to open-source your entire hosting stack including UI. God help you if you pay for any proprietary software — you literally can't satisfy these terms. Notably, Elastic itself doesn't have to do this for its own hosting service, because of course it can't satisfy the terms: no hosting company I know of can. The point of the license isn't to get contributions back. The point is to prevent competition to Elastic's hosting business. Elastic's new version of ElasticSearch is source-available software, not open-source, by pretty much any reasonable definition.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  >If you want to offer ElasticSearch as a service, you have to open-source your entire hosting stack including UI. It's worse than that: you need to release your entire hosting stack under the SSPL. It's extremely unlikely that you're able to do this. Hope your servers aren't running Linux! (Or bash or the GNU coreutils or...) If it were acceptable for the rest of the stack to be under another free software license, I'm not actually sure I'd be opposed to it. But yeah, as-is it sure looks like they've just written the license such that it's impossible for a hosting provider to comply.

hvdijk 6y ago

> (b) they outright lied to the community when they claimed that future versions of their open core would always remain Apache 2.0 Where did they make this claim?

somethingwitty1 6y ago
It is covered in the blog post if you read it. https://web.archive.org/web/20200120104750/https:/www.elastic.co/what-is/open-x-pack https://web.archive.org/web/20200120104750/https:/www.elasti... "We did not change the license of any of the Apache 2.0 code of Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, and Logstash — and we never will."
- hvdijk 6y ago
  Ah, thanks, somehow that completely slipped by me.